The Effectiveness of Mutual Trust in Civil and Criminal Law in the Eu

Abstract

According to the sociologist Niklas Luhman trust represents a 'confidence in one's own expectation to another person's behavior. With such understanding of the etymology of the term "trust", its position in the everyday life has paramount importance in the social interaction of humans. Therefore, the understanding of the term 'mutual trust' must be derived from its definition as a basic fact of social life and a component of human behavior. This term has reached new level of meaning in Europe with the creation of the European Union. The whole apparatus of crossborder cooperation in criminal and civil matters in the EU is centered around the principle of "mutual trust" and its influence regarding "mutual recognition". In this article the authors will address these aspects from different point of views: cross-border cooperation in criminal matters and in civil matters in order to determine whether "mutual trust" really exist between the designated stakeholders in criminal and in civil matters, and try to identify the reasons for the drawbacks. Having in mind that these two fields are completely different, the authors will try to find common ground in the actual effective implementation of the principle of 'mutual trust' and understand the functioning of the principle in these two fields. Alternatively, their proposition is that the main stakeholders in the EU should use their resources in building a long term 'actual trust' instead of politically motivated 'mutual trust' that creates notable difficulties in the functioning of the 'mutual recognition' in the EU.

The Policies of the European Union from a Central European Perspective

“…In the absence of a community document protecting fundamental rights, the CJEU established their existence in community law in the form of general principles of community law. 3 In the judgment in Internationale Handelsgesellschaft case, the CJEU explained that the protection of fundamental rights in the community legal order is 'inspired by the constitutional traditions common to the Member States' and that protection of these rights must be ensured in the EEC. 4 In the mid-1970s, the CJEU began to emphasize the importance of the European system of human rights protection in the Council of Europe for the understanding of fundamental rights in the EEC.…”

“…27 The division of fundamental rights adopted in the CFR follows 6 values, which are: dignity (Arts. [1][2][3][4][5], freedoms (Arts. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], equality (Arts.…”

“…This distinction inevitably leads to a cultural and moral hierarchy between the Member States: the model countries consider themselves to be ahead of the game in implementing the European economic and social model and reserve the right to evaluate the progress of catching-up countries and to encourage the catching-up process. 3 The second claim is that the only alternative to the European peace project is a return to destructive wars. It follows that questioning the direction of Franco-German cooperation is an attack on European peace.…”

“…The EU is not a pure intellectual concept; there are wills behind that hold it. By rephrasing Schopenhauer (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), I argue that the EU is, on the one hand, an idea represented by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), 3 promoting the rule of law, and, on the other hand, it is a bundle of wills, represented by the national constitutional courts, promoting democracy. Alternatively, while the CJEU usually follows a pure, Kelsenian theory of law, 4 the national constitutional courts do not want to detach themselves so strictly from the social reality.…”

“…The title of this paper is metaphorical: legal imperialism has not yet been imposed, but some aspects of the autonomy of EU law may cast a shadow over the European democracies (infra, 1.8, 3.4). 3 The expressions Court of Justice of the European Communities, European Court of Justice, Court of Justice of the EU, etc. are all used with the abbreviation CJEU.…”